


The Birds and The Bees

by woolfverse



Series: Woolfverse [22]
Category: Temeraire - Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkwardness, Character of Color, Gen, LGBTQ Character, POV Third Person, Parenthood, Past Tense, the sex talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-16
Updated: 2010-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woolfverse/pseuds/woolfverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurence is beset with a task he isn't sure he's up for: explaining where babies come from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Birds and The Bees

"Dad?" George asked. Will looked over to the dining room table, where the boy was working on maths homework. "Where did we come from?"

"Why do you ask?" Will replied, frowning. "Is that your next homework assignment after the word problems?" Inherent in that query was, of course, _and if not, perhaps you should get back to work on the long division in front of you._

"No. Just curious." George hatched out a few numbers on his paper before looking up again. "So where did Martha and I come from?"

"Well," Will said, setting down his sailing magazine, "I'm from Nottinghamshire, of course, and if you follow the family tree back far enough, we come from the Plantagenet kings. And Tharkay is Tibetan, of course. And since your mum was a cousin of mine, your blood also traces back to the Plantagenets."

George very kindly waited for his father to finish before answering, "I _know_ that. I mean Marthy and me. How did we...?" He frowned, trying to find the words he wanted.

Will felt the blood drain from his face. "You want to know how you showed up in your mum in the first place."

"Yes!" George said cheerfully. "That."

-

  
"He's nine," he said to Tharkay, staring up at the ceiling, covers twisted around them both. "Are they supposed to want to know these things when they're nine? I didn't."

"You were living the life of the repressed English schoolboy," Tharkay answered dryly. "I imagine you wanted to know very little about what your parents did in general, much less in bed."

Will couldn't quite repress a shudder at the very thought of his mother and father doing..._that_. Tharkay laughed quietly, and after a moment, Will did as well. When they had sobered, Will said, "I told him that I would give him the proper explanation tomorrow, after we've picked Martha up from her sleepover. What're we going to tell them?"

"The truth would suffice. Though perhaps not in too lurid of detail." Will could hear Tharkay's smile even in the dark. "Whatever you tell them, they'll picture their parents doing."

He shuddered again at that, then leaned over and kissed Tharkay. "That means we only have one more night of blissful ignorance on their parts."

"We really shouldn't waste it," Tharkay mumbled in reply.

-

  
Two sets of bright blue eyes stared at Will from across the dining room table that Saturday morning; Martha yawned occasionally but otherwise looked, interested, and George, mostly impatient. He _had_ been waiting since the previous evening for his explanation.

Will himself felt like he might be better off committing some sort of ritual suicide. He folded his hands on the table and cleared his throat. "Martha, George had a--an interesting question for me last night, and I thought it best if we all discussed as one--"

"It's okay, Dad, I filled her in," George interrupted. "We can just get straight to it. If that's all right."

"Oh." Will himself had learned from schoolmates and his older brothers, and was not entirely sure how this discussion was supposed to go. He _did_ recall from flipping through parenting books years ago that it was important to have a healthy attitude towards sex, though he suddenly realized he had no way of conveying that in words to a pair of eager nine year olds. "Well, you see, when a man and a woman--or two men, or two women, of course--love each other very much, and are very serious about their relationship--"

"Like you and Tharkay," Martha suggested.

"Exactly like us." Tharkay's warning from the previous night came back to Will just then. "There are certain, er--_activities_ they can--take part in--which are _only_ for people in very serious relationships, and not until they are adults--"

Both of the children were beginning to frown at their father's sudden loss of articulation, and Will paused to gather his thoughts. George, taking advantage of that break, asked, "Activities like football?"

"Not--as such, no. It's not a sport," though he did reflect that it could be very good exercise and held in his nervous amusement as best he could. "It is done in the privacy of one's own home. Do you--er, have you heard the word sex before?" He privately commended himself for at least not stumbling over that bit.

They both nodded.

"And do you know what it means?"

Two heads shook "no" in unison.

Will suddenly found himself entirely tongue-tied. He massaged his temples, eyes closed, and reflected that perhaps he should not have been the one elected to explain this subject. "Oh, Hell. Let's have Tharkay explain it; he will be much more clear about this."

-

  
Two minutes later, they were all crowded into Tharkay's study, in lines facing each other: Will and Tharkay on one side, Martha and George on the other. "I told them," Will said, and cleared his throat once more. "I got to the point of the word 'sex' and thought you might take it from there."

"Ah," Tharkay replied, his expression unreadable. "Well, when two or more people care very deeply for each other--"

"You can have more than two?" Martha asked. "Dad didn't mention that."

"I must have forgotten," Will said faintly. "Do--ah, do go on, Tharkay."

"Well, it begins with--" And Tharkay paused, glanced at Will, and considered.

"...It begins with," George prompted expectantly, and another long pause ensued.

"Do you think," Tharkay finally asked, "that it would be in poor taste to call Jane up for this one?"

"I am beginning to think that might be our best option," Will replied.

-

  
"For if they are interested, they are old enough to know," Tharkay said later that night, when the children were in bed and he and Will had the ten o'clock news on. "But I--"

"Could not quite find the words," Will suggested, and Tharkay nodded. "I felt the same."

While the newscasters offered the upcoming week's weather predictions, Tharkay asked, "Did your parents ever have the talk with you?"

Will shook his head. "My father might've told George and then asked him to--er, pass it along to Henry and me. But never directly. Did your mum--?"

"Smacked me with a spoon once when I asked," Tharkay replied

The sports report came on then, and Will unmuted the telly. When it was over, he said slowly, "And both of us turned out fine."

Tharkay nodded. "As far as I'm concerned."

"And better they learn from Jane than their friends," Will decided. Even if the children _had_ come home from their short visit to the Roland household with the exciting new knowledge that Jane and Will had had some manner of relationship before they were born.

"Relax, Will," she had said over the phone, for George and Martha hadn't mentioned this bit of trivia until dinner (at which point, Will had choked on a bite of chicken, and Tharkay had had to excuse himself momentarily; the muffled sound of laughter came from their bedroom soon after). "I didn't go into detail."

"Yes, but--" and Will had realized he wasn't sure what exactly he was protesting. If Jane had not indicated exactly what _sort_ of liaison they'd had, an affair that happened two decades previous was hardly scandalous. (He suspected it would be some time before he could bring himself to tell them what their grandmother thought of Emily Roland, but that was another matter entirely.)

"With our luck," Tharkay said, bringing Will back to the present moment, "they will be the ones telling the other children what there is to know." There was a smile in his voice, deadpan though his expression was.

Will leaned into Tharkay and sighed, not too discontentedly. "As long as they know what they are talking about, I cannot bring myself to care too much who they tell."


End file.
